Date:Wed, 20.May 1996Orkla

Agreement for BBH's aquisition in Yaroslavl approved

The Annual Meeting of the Russian brewery Yaroslavl Brewery Plc has now given its approval to the agreement reached April this year by the management of the brewery and the joint subsidiary of Pripps Ringnes AB and Oy Hartwall Ab, BBH/Baltic Beverages Holding, to the effect that BBH now has a 50% ownership in the brewery. The BBH acquisition is effected partly through the purchase of shares and partly through the issuing of new shares. To BBH the investment amounts to a total of USD 10 million. The revenue from the new issue will be invested mainly in a bottling plant and processing equipment. Moreover, BBH will continually be contributing its technical, logistical and marketing know-how.

The town of Yaroslavl is about 200 kilometres northeast of Moscow, and the Yaroslavl Brewery was established in 1975. The brewery is market leader in its region and also has a good position in the Moscow market. It reports annual sales of 65 million litres and a turnover of around MSEK 80. Its goal is to increase its sales to more than 100 million litres within the next years. The Yaroslavl Brewery has approximately 600 employees and its own malthouse with an annual capacity of 15,000 tons.

As a result of the acquisition in Yaroslavl and ownership of the Baltika Brewery of St. Petersburg since 1993, the BBH Group will become one of the biggest operators in the Russian brewing industry, with annual sales of around 200 million litres of beer and lesser volumes of mineral water and soft drinks.

BBH has for some time been a majority shareholder in the breweries Baltika (St. Petersburg), Saku (Estonia), Aldaris (Latvia) and Kalnapilis (Lithuania).